Take my ADD, please. When my ADD sits around the house, it really sits around the house. I just flew in from Los Angeles, and boy is my ADD tired. Knock knock. Who's there? ADD. ADD, who? ADD to you, too, buddy.

Life with Attention Deficit Disorder/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity...

I give my new friend, Overly Frank, a lot of credit for deciding this year to sell his suburban tract house on the outskirts of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and relocate to the corner of Clark and Fullerton. Along with the move to one of the densest urban neighborhoods in America, the...

Find a video follow-up to this post here on my Chicagosphere byline.

Last week, the Chicago Reader's Michael Miner committed a despicable act unworthy of a journalist. In an article entitled "First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All the Columnists," Miner told newspaper commentators that their opinion-bearing...

Ever since I became an official Netflix couch potato, I've been spending my evenings popping one Hollywood back-catalog movie after another into my nifty new Blu-ray/DVD player. The mail-me-a-movie service is a godsend for ADDers like me. I almost never see first-run films -- the idea of sitting quiet...

I'm happy to say this is the first time in eight years I didn't see 9/11 coming. I forgot almost completely about the anniversary of that infamous date until a few hours before this writing. In previous years, I've commemorated the day by describing my part in the exodus...

Monday morning the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Chicago Transit Authority president Richard Rodriguez canceled the free-car perq that dozens of high-ranking managers--including Rodriguez--used to drive back and forth to their jobs at the nation's second-largest public transit system.

An ironic situation seemingly made all better--except that Rodriguez has now...

This week, the Chicago Transit Authority is surveying riders on the front page of its Web site. As you might expect (especially in the still-turbulent wake of Ron Huberman's exit), the agency is doing a rotten job of it.

Especially for a transit provider with a historically...

The nutshell? Chicago needs a BLOGGERS ROUNDTABLE, or strategy charrette, to discuss how WE want to achieve future sustainability for OUR community, OUR ability to disseminate local news and OUR financial bottom lines. Read on for more...

Last week, Chicago independent media sought the key to a sustainable future by...

During their Windy City visit last week, Seattle's coolest couple, Kasey and John, waxed giddily about the fun and frolic of my downtown Chicago neighborhood.

Their reaction stands in stark contrast to the one I normally get from native Chicagoans when I tell them I live downtown. It's almost...

"... Landshark."
An old 12-step adage says no matter how willingly you're off the wagon, sometimes recovery comes and finds you. One day you're sitting there in your living room wrapped around your addiction of choice when you hear a knock at the door. You peer through the peephole...

Rupert Murdoch and the Associated Press think there's value in siloing the news -- so much so that the AP has labeled bloggers "content thieves" merely for linking to or opining on AP stories reprinted in hundreds of newspapers around the country. Others have made the same charge...

I meant it last August when I said print journalism was killing itself by its own hand. On Friday, I teamed up with Community Media Workshop Vice-President, Bike-the-Drive Gordon Mayer, to talk about Internet and social-media success models with a local niche print publication that shall remain...

Imagine my surprise this past Friday when I took one of my urban hikes through my downtown Chicago neighborhood and walked right into what may be the most unnecessarily dangerous pedestrian crossing in town.

I was heading down the lakefront from Marina City towards the (allegedly contemporary) Adler...

Earlier this month, a visit to the Brookfield Zoo with Mr. New Guy uncovered new depths of hidden obsessiveness in Yours Truly. I've always liked the place--it reminds me of a pancake-flat Bronx Zoo, minus the Bengali Express monorail ride through Wild Asia that I grew up riding....

On Monday, the Chicago Transit Authority opened the long-heralded Polk Street entrance to the Harrison Street Red Line 'L' station months ahead of schedule. If you didn't know that, you're not alone. Most people probably still have no clue the entrance is open.

That's because the CTA didn't bother...

This week, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley made his most uninformed, misguided decision in recent memory by deciding to pull Chicago Transit Authority President Ron Huberman out of the post and install him as the CEO of Chicago Public Schools. CPS needed a new leader because the old one,...

It may be the biggest heist in Chicago history, folks, and it's right under our noses. Or our feet, anyway. One look at this year's new Chicago Transit Authority map uncovers the dastardly deed: someone has stolen the Washington/State Red Line station.

When I...

UPDATE (5:00 p.m.): And it's an odd one. Apparently, the same day this story appeared, the City of Chicago began promoting a redesigned "official" tourism website--and a nifty one at that, ExploreChicago, sponsored by the Chicago Office of Tourism, that tells the story of both city and citizens perfectly....

As I mark my sixth anniversary^* as an ex-pat New Yorker living in King Daley's court, I realize this is the first New Year in Chicago that I don't want to be anywhere else. When I first arrived, a post-9/11 psychological refugee, I expected my self-imposed asylum from...

Attempting to recover from the prancing and pawing of rooftop hooves the day after Christmas, I decided to spend the morning at the Art Institute of Chicago. Even before I checked my coat, I knew my visit would leave a mixed impression on me. As always, I expected to...